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1 The nature of the evidence
This book is not, and does not profess to be, a work of archaeology. Nor does it offer a comprehensive survey of the Greek Bronze Age. Readers who need such a survey will go, as I have very often gone, to Mrs Vermeuleâs âGreece in the Bronze Ageâ (Vermeule, 1964). With that masterly achievement I cannot compete. Again, I have not attempted a short general treatment of the kind undertaken, with admirable results, by Taylour, 1964 and by Finley, 1970. I propose, rather, to discuss, from a historical point of view, some of the crucial periods in the development of Aegean lands during the Bronze Age. The subject is often, by its nature, controversial. Fields in which historians are in broad agreement with one another (and those fields are still very wide) will be indicated comparatively briefly, so as to concentrate on the investigation (and, it is hoped, the elucidation) of the more controverted matters.
My principal subject is the so-called âMycenaeanâ culture, which arose in Greece during the sixteenth century BC, expanded in the next few generations, spread over the Aegean and parts of the eastern Mediterranean during the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries, and declined in the twelfth century: a decline which was accompanied by widespread devastation. Only Chapter 2 is concerned with a topic which falls outside this period, but it is one to which we are irresistibly led even by the most superficial examination of the Mycenaean age: namely, the origin of the âHelladicâ culture of mainland Greece. The Mycenaean civilization itself arose from the assimilation of this Helladic culture with the âMinoanâ culture of Bronze Age Crete. It will therefore become necessary to consider some problems which arise in the study of Minoan Crete; for this cannot be dissociated from the Mycenaean world. The outlines of Aegean prehistory in the Early and Middle Bronze Age have been drawn with a firm hand by Branigan, 1970a and by Renfrew, 1972: books which enable me to take many things as read.
The epoch of human history known as the Bronze Age is, by definition, the period in which bronze came to be the predominant metal for the manufacture of weapons and of the more valuable domestic utensils. It used to be thought that the rise of bronze as a useful material was accompanied by the first appearance of many features which we loosely associate with âcivilizationâ, especially urban civilization. But recent discoveries in Greece, the Near East, and Anatolia have shown that the main trends of development in the Bronze Age were already being followed by the close of the Late Stone Age (âNeolithicâ). Towns of sizable proportions flourished long before the beginning of the Bronze Age, notably at Ăatal HĂźyĂźk in central Turkey and at Jawa in Jordan. In Greece itself, domestication of animals, cultivation of crops, manufacture of pottery, and burial of the dead in graves with funerary offerings are all attested within the Neolithic period. What was once considered a unique mark of Bronze Age civilization, the use of writing, is known at a Neolithic settlement in Rumania (Hood, 1967). Finally, the diffusion of obsidian from the Cyclades shows the existence of means of transport and communication over a wide area, from Thessaly in the north to Crete in the south (Renfrew, 1972, 442â3).
The Bronze Age in Greece, no less than the Neolithic, is accurately called a âprehistoricâ period. In the Aegean area (unlike the situation in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Egypt) the peoples of the Bronze Age do not speak to us directly. No literary texts, no explicit statements of myth or of religious belief, no annals or historical records have come to light. Treaties and diplomatic letters, which testify to relations between states in other parts of the Mediterranean, are completely lacking here; in fact, we possess virtually no written document which looks forward or backward more than a year or so. In default of more permanent or informative documents, we have at our disposal five sources for the reconstruction. of the course of events in our area: 1 the material remains (âmonumentsâ) of the Bronze Age civilization; 2 inventories and accounts kept by the Mycenaeans and Minoans in the Linear B script; 3 the Greek language, as recorded during the Bronze Age itself and again in the historical period (from about 700 BC); 4 references to and depictions of the Aegean peoples by contemporaries; 5 echoes of the Bronze Age in ancient Greek authors and Bronze Age survivals in the cults and legends of the classical Greeks.
It is the very profusion of types of evidence that often makes for difficulty. Not only can evidence of one kind appear to contradict evidence of another, but two pieces of evidence may relate to different facets of the same problem: that is especially true of the change from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age in Greece (Chapter 2). In any case, it would be wrong to think that all the types amount to evidence of equal value.
In the case of any conflict of evidence, the witness of archaeology ought always to prevail, because the whole concept of a Bronze Age is archaeological, not linguistic or legendary. Without the evidence of the monuments, the Aegean Bronze Age as it is known to-day could never have been reconstructed. It follows that, while an attempt may legitimately be made to reconcile the archaeological with other types of evidence, the monuments must never be accommodated within a spurious history cobbled together from fragments of legends and genealogies. It is true that about both Mycenae and Troy (to say nothing of Crete, which was celebrated as the birth-place of Zeus himself) there accumulated not only separate episodes but whole cycles of legend which, fascinating in themselves, have been made immeasurably more so by the power of mighty poets. But the legends have also passed through the distorting imagination of the most inventive of all ancient peoples: if the fictions of the poets had been less persuasive than in fact they are, Plato would not have thought it necessary to banish them from his ideal state. It is, therefore, important not to be lured by the Greek story-tellers into a belief that what they narrate is to be equated with history. And yet such equations are constantly drawn in works on the Aegean Bronze Age which give the appearance of being (and which, in other respects, may be) statements of fact. In this connexion, I strongly agree with the remarks of Furumark, 1950, 182â3.
Beginning with the most important, I now discuss in greater detail the nature and value of the five types of evidence mentioned above.
1 The material remains of the Greek Bronze Age are known from surface finds and excavations in Greece and in other parts of the Mediterranean. Systematic excavation began in the 1870s when Heinrich Schliemann uncovered parts of the Bronze Age sites of Mycenae, Orchomenos, Tiryns, and Troy. Although his discoveries were soon followed by the excavation of many other settlements and tombs in Greece and peripheral lands, no clear chronological sequence either absolute or relative was established for the Aegean Bronze Age until Arthur Evansâ excavations at Knossos, in northern Crete, early in the present century. It is now clear that Evans was too ready to fit the development of other sites into a sequence he had worked out for Knossos; and, even so far as Knossos is concerned, his chronology is sometimes arbitrary (Levi, 1960 and 1962). But, despite attempts which have been made to impugn it, Evansâ system has been found generally useful, so long as his division into periods (made solely on the evidence of pottery) is not insisted on too stringently. By subsequent investigators, especially Blegen and Wace, who worked on the Greek mainland, Evansâ scheme has been modified and extended so as to embrace the whole Aegean area. Within this area three separate, though often interacting, cultures can be distinguished: the Helladic in central and southern Greece; the Cycladic in the Archipelago; and the Minoan in Crete. During the Bronze Age, each of these three cultures is held to have passed through an early, a middle, and a late phase; and these phases are susceptible of rough dating in absolute terms, because of cross-references with other cultures, especially that of Egypt (Warren and Hankey, 1974). Some of these phases are divided into three, which are further sub-divided. Thus, it is customary to distinguish the Late Minoan Ia (LM Ia) from the Late Minoan Ib (LM Ib) phase within the Late Palace period at Knossos, and Late Helladic IIIb (LH IIIb) from IIIc on the mainland. The long LH IIIb period itself can be divided (at least at Mycenae) into an earlier (IIIb1) and a later (IIIb2) phase (Chapter 5). These distinctions are sometimes necessary, and even of paramount importance, in establishing a sequence of events; but it should not be lost sight of that this sequence is in the last resort based on one type of artefact, and one only: the pottery. The divisions of the Bronze Age which seem to rest on secure foundations are set out in Table 1.
Important changes on the mainland at c. 1900, 1600, and 1200 BC and in Crete during the fifteenth century will be given detailed treatment in later chapters: meanwhile, the principal features of the successive periods will be reviewed very briefly.
The civilization of the Middle Bronze Age in Crete seems to have been considerably more advanced than that of the Greek mainland. Besides numerous smaller settlements, three âpalacesâ of great size and importance reached their acme in the Cretan Early Palace period (nineteenth and eighteenth centuries BC): at Knossos in the north, at Mallia in the north-east, and at Phaistos in the south. Each of these sites, though participating in a common Minoan culture, possessed an individual character of its own: a fact made plain by the existence of local pottery workshops and scribal schools which did not always develop at the same pace or in the same direction as their neighbours. Rapid progress was made in a number of fine arts, especially seal-engraving, fresco-painting, and pottery. The use of writing for keeping accounts is well attested at all three palaces and at some other sites as well. To all appearance, the Minoans at this brilliant epoch had little to do with the Greek mainland. They established settlements at Melos and Kythera and took pottery to the island of Thera. Egypt was a constant trading-partner of Crete and the origin of several decorative motifs of Middle Minoan pottery, while the Minoans maintained trading contacts (if they were no more than that) with the sea-board of Syria and Palestine.
The palace of Knossos suffered a set-back toward the end of the Middle Bronze Age, when large parts of it were destroyed. Recovery and rebuilding were swift: it was this restored palace which Evans uncovered in his successive excavations. The beginning of the Late Palace period is well marked not only in the three palaces but also at Ayia Triada in the south and at Zakro and Palaikastro in the east. The opening of the period was accompanied by fresh Cretan expansion overseas. While Cretan influence remained paramount in those islands of the Cyclades which had previously shown marked signs of an intrusive Minoan culture, new Cretan settlements now began to appear farther afield, for example in Rhodes and on the Anatolian coast. Evidence from both the Cretan and the Egyptian side suggests that connexions between these two areas remained close throughout the sixteenth and fifteenth centuries BC. In Crete itself, Knossos seems to have established some kind of hegemony during the fifteenth century; and, during this same century, most of the Cretan settlements apart from Knossos were destroyed, some of them never being inhabited again. The causes of their destruction and the character of Knossos in the Late Palace period will be scrutinized in Chapter 4.
The destruction of Knossos is to be placed at the end of the Late Palace period (c. 1375 BC). It thus appears that no Cretan site of any consequence, except Kydonia in the west, escaped a major destruction in the âfifteenth and fourteenth centuries. Subsequently, Knossos and some other sites were re-occupied. This âperiod of re-occupationâ, as Evans regarded it, was basically Minoan so far as its culture was concerned; but the âpalatialâ way of life had come to an end, while there were fewer and less extensive contacts with other parts of the Mediterranean than had obtained in the palatial epochs.
On the mainland, signs of Minoan influence, more far-reaching than any previously attested, appear at Mycenae toward the end of the Middle Bronze Age and are accentuated in the first part of the Late Bronze Age. In the second and third parts of that Age, fewer influences are felt directly from the Minoan culture of Crete; but many of the arts of the mainland (though not the monumental architecture of its great citadels) still descend, at however great a remove, from Minoan models. Moreover, some of the religious practices of the mainlanders speak in favour of continuing contact with Crete (Chapter 8). For the sake of convenience, these phases of the Mycenaean culture may be represented schematically:
First Phase of Minoan Influence (Middle Helladic and Late Helladic I pottery). An imperfect fusion between Helladic and Minoan leads to the beginning of a distinctive Mycenaean culture, which is largely confined to the Peloponnese. The most important evidence for this Phase comes from tombs in western Messenia and the two Grave Circles at Mycenae (and, more specifically, from funerary offerings buried with the dead) (Chapter 3).
Second Phase of Minoan Influence (Late Helladic II-IIIa1 pottery). The almost complete fusion between Helladic and Minoan and the adoption on the mainland of Minoan art-forms and the external features of Minoan cult are accompanied by the penetration of Mycenaean culture to many parts of central and southern Greece and to Thessaly (Chapter 4).
Third Phase of Minoan Influence (Late Helladic IIIa2-IIIb pottery). The Mycenaean culture, now developing (for the most part) independently of the Minoan, becomes dominant in the Aegean. To this Phase belongs the Mycenaean expansion into the eastern Mediterranean and, on a much smaller scale, into Sicily and southern Italy (Chapters 5 and 6). The closing stages of the Third Phase are marked by a series of destructions, after which many Mycenaean sites are re-occupied with movements of population (Chapter 7).
2 The deductions which can legitimately be made from the mass of archaeological material are limited. It is especially hazardous to draw any conclusions of a political or social kind from archaeological evidence alone; while even the religious objects known from Bronze Age Greece show only the external manifestations of cult and do not always reveal what underlies them. In this state of affairs, it is natural to turn to the documents written by the Minoans and Mycenaeans in the hope that, by fitting them into the archaeological framework, we shall be able to correlate the motives and the achievements of these peoples. In the 1950s a nucleus of Greek words and forms was identified and isolated in the Linear B tablets from Knossos and the mainland. The partial decipherment which ensued has revealed something of the social, economic, and political organization of some major Bronze Age settlements. To that extent, we are much better informed than before; and yet, because the documents are of the most austere and anonymous kind, amounting to little more than lists and records of transactions, they also are relevant only to the outward manifestations of the Aegean cultures: they speak of methods, not of motives.
3 Not only the contents of the Linear B tablets but the very dialect in which they are written can be pressed into the service of historical reconstruction. The dialectal affinities of the Homeric poems (c. 700 BC) and the inscriptions of the classical period (sixth century and later) throw light on the migrations of peoples and the fragmentation of the Mycenaean world.
4 Contemporary references to Mycenaeans and Minoans fall into three main classes: (i) paintings of Aegean peoples in Egyptian tombs of the fifteenth century BC (Chapter 4); (ii) allusions to Crete, and perhaps also to the Greek mainland, in an Egyptian monumental inscription of about 1400 BC (Chapter 4); (iii) allusions to a people or country called âAhhiyawaâ in Hittite documents of the fourteenth and thirteenth centuries (Chapter 6). As we shall see, the utmost care must be exercised in assessing these three classes.
5 The Bronze Age elements which survive in the legends and literature of the Greeks from Homer downward call for more extensive discussion, since the view taken of them here needs some justification.
As is known, the ancient Greeks pondered deeply on their own past; and their memory of places and customs, and perhaps of persons also, was exceedingly long. The investigations of a long line of twentieth-century Homerists, from Allen to Page and Hope Simpson, have shown that the Catalogue of Ships in the second book of the âIliadâ preserves some accurate memories of Bronze Age sites in Greece; and it is possible, though far from certain, that the heroes and genealogies associated with those places likewise have some basis in fact. Mycenae especially must have been well known to a narrative tradition which culminated in the Homeric poems. Nilsson, 1932 pressed the evidence as far as possible in support of his contention that the main cycles of Greek legend and the Greek epic tradition reach back into the Mycenaean period. Even though his arguments do not convince me completely, I think we would be indulging in the luxury of scepticism too far if we were to deny the probability that other sites than Mycenae (such as Pylos, Orchomenos, and Knossos) entered the epic tradition before the end of the Bronze Age.
But, while the events narrated in the Homeric epics must never form the basis of a historical reconstruction, the poems do describe, sometimes in surprisingly accurate detail, objects and practices which belong (and belong exclusively, so far as we know) to the Greek Bronze Age. Such are the silver-studded sword (âIliadâ 23. 807), the boarâs tusk helmet (10. 261â5), and the body-shield of Ajax (7. 219â23). These are, admittedly, isolated objects, whose presence in the âIliadâ does not affect the structure of the poem as a whole. It is otherwise with the pervasive use of bronze for weapons and utensils. In this respect the epic has been shown, in recent years, to present a more faithful picture of the Mycenaean world than was formerly envisaged; for we now have slight, but unquestionable, evidence for the use in Mycenaean times of body-armour made of bronze as well as of bronze swords and spears. When so much in the epic is indissolubly linked to the Bronze Age as it appears in the archaeological record, it does not seem right in principle to deny a Mycenaean origin to those references which could belong equally well to the Bronze or to the Iron Age.
Even so, the Homeric epics constitute a treacherous source of information, if we rely on them alone. The great difficulty is that it is impossible to achieve a satisfactory separation of âearlyâ and âlateâ elements in Homer (more precisely, features which entered the epic during the Bronze Age and during the subsequent Dark Ages respectively) by employing either linguistic or archaeological criteria. For example, the Gorgon-charge on Agamemnonâs shield (âIliadâ 11. 36) seems indubitably to have had its origin long after the end of the Bronze Age; and yet we find inextricably associated with it a reference to the typically Bronze Age technique of inlaying metal. Again, the duel in âIliadâ 7 is fought between Ajax, with the cumbersome body-shield already mentioned, and Hector, who wears a shield of quite different type, lighter and of later origin (Chapter 5). It is plain that such a combat could never have taken place in the real world. The manner of disposing of the dead goes to the root of our problem here. The people of the Aegean Bronze Age buried their dead: a practice attested by many hundreds, if not thousands, of tombs. In stark contrast, the Homeric heroes are cremated, with funeral rites and offerings. The practice of cremation is often described or alluded to by Homer; and the actual motive for cremation is more than once expl...
